Post by blade on Feb 9, 2011 12:01:38 GMT
Source: www.nme.com/reviews/sad-day-for-puppets/10505
Text:
Album review: Sad Day For Puppets - 'Unknown Colours'
Fuzzy-sweet Swedish grunge-pop
May 27, 2009
“Any time is a good time for guitars and feedback,” claims guitarist Martin Källholm. Well, quite. The plaid days of early ’90s alt. rock are having a quiet resurgence, and the Stockholm quintet are one of its more beguiling advocates. The reference points – Dinosaur Jr and Mazzy Star in particular – may be familiar, but the band have a keen ear for simple melodies (Källholm reckons they can be traced back to Swedish lullabies). The Britpoppy ‘Little Light’ or the elegiac ‘All The Songs’ are easy to fall in love with. Anna Eklund’s spectral diction – enshrined under glacial washes of distortion – is seductive and richly evocative. If the prospect of a Swedish Joy Zipper appeals to you, you should investigate forthwith.
Barry Nicolson
8 out of 10
*******
Source: www.flashlightmusic.co.uk/albumreview/article/sad-day-for-puppets-unknown-colors-album-review.html
Text:
Sad Day For Puppets - Unknown Colors
May 28, 2009
Flashlight Rating - 4/5
We like this
Before anyone gets jingoistically (if it's not a word, it damn well should be) angry about the spelling of the title of Sad Day For Puppets' debut LP, I should make two things clear. Firstly, they're Swedish. Secondly, it is apparently "a comment on Sweden's deference to American culture". So there you go. Frankly, even if they were English, I would excuse them for the spelling on account of the fact that they've produced one of the best guitar pop albums I will hear this year.
Satire or not, there is a very strong Americana feel to much of Unknown Colours. The guitars are drenched in Pixies feedback; the pretty female vocals of opener 'Little Light' recalling Belly at their most melodic. In Anna Ekland, Sad Day For Puppets boast a female vocalist replete with pretty indie voice with hint of menace par excellence. Songwriter Martin Kallholm has given her a set of songs with which to showcase the adaptability of her voice. 'Mother's Tears', with its shuffling rhythms and distorted bassline sounds like prime Jesus and Mary Chain (I'd say The Raveonettes, but I wouldn't want to be accused of cross-Scandinavian generalisation. It would be true, but I won't), 'Marble Gods' recalls Lush, and the unrelentingly uplifting 'Last Night' could have come directly from The Boo Radley's majestic Giant Steps.
It's to Ekland's great credit that at all times her voice elevates the band above accusations of being mere copyists. Nowehere does Ekland sound better than on the single 'Cherry Blossom'. In a bizarre journalistic quirk, consecutive albums that I have reviewed have featured tracks that borrow wholesale from The Beach Boys' 'Fun, Fun, Fun'. 'Cherry Blossom' is as about as far removed from Green Day's joyless dirge as it as possible to get mind, for it is a glam tinged indie classic in the making. When Ekland effortlessly crooned "We could close our eyes, and always keep them closed", I decided I was in love.
Elsewhere, the band indulge influences closer to home. Though it is tempting to label Unknown Colors' more ethereal moments as Sigur Ros-esque, I prefer to believe Kallholm's take on tracks like 'Lay Your Burden On Me' as being more akin to the Swedish lullabies that the band grew up with. The album's finale, 'Withering Petals and Dust', sounds like you've known it forever; its mixture of folk tinged guitar, the childlike innocence of the melody and lush production sounding instantly familiar yet genuinely unique. It's a fitting end to a brilliant album, which takes masses of American and English sounds that you've heard before, but mixes them with influences closer to the band's hearts into something at times really rather special. Maybe one day we'll all be spelling 'Colours' in Swedish. Though as our website seems to die when even trying to put Sad Day For Puppets' songwriter's name in correctly, we kind of hope not.
Oliver W J Rock
********
Source: www.billboard.com/album/sad-day-for-puppets/unknown-colors/1261874/review#/album/sad-day-for-puppets/unknown-colors/1261874/review
Text:
Like many Swedish bands, Sad Day for Puppets display a remarkable ingenuity at making already sweet sounds even more confectionary. Unknown Colors, their debut album, revisits the halcyon days of the late '80s and early '90s, when indie pop crossbred with shoegaze and groups like Lush, Bettie Serveert, and Velocity Girl mixed those dreamy sonics with immediate hooks and melodies. Sad Day for Puppets don't make many advancements on that sound, except perhaps making it more delicate -- it's no surprise that their breezy songs have intangible or ephemeral imagery like skies, stars, and tears in their titles. Martin Kallholm and Marcus Sandgren's guitars chime, fuzz, and occasionally tear it up like Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, while Anna Eklund's lighter-than-air voice gives songs like "Little Light" and "Blue Skies" extra wistfulness. While Sad Day for Puppets aren't doing anything particularly new, they don't really need to when they write songs as irresistible as "Marble Gods," which shows off those guitars and that voice at their most charming. "Romans" sparkles like it was dipped in sugar, but Unknown Colors offers a few different flavors of sweetness and light: the slinky fuzz bass and tambourine on "Mother's Tears" give it a surprisingly sexy vibe, and "Cherry Blossom"'s guitars have more of a rock strut to them than might be expected. As the album unfolds, it shows that Sad Day for Puppets also have a lot in common with contemporaries like the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and especially with fellow countrymen and women such as Sambassadeur and the Concretes, particularly on the swooning "Withering Petals and Dust." At times, it feels like the bandmembers let their well-worn sound do more of the work in their music than the actual songwriting, but the breakup lyrics of "When the Morning Comes" ("No matter what I say/It's just flowers on the grave") show there is some depth beneath the band's pretty surfaces. Even if there aren't too many previously unknown sounds on Unknown Colors, Sad Day for Puppets know how to use them well.
Heather Phares, All Music Guide
********
Source: www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/sad-day-for-puppets-unknown-colors/
Text:
Sad Day For Puppets – Unknown Colors
by Simon Gurney on 12 Jun, 2009
Bands stealing older bands styles doesn’t matter when the stealing is done so well. Poseurs copy, the real deal steals. Sad Day For Puppets blah blah blah. Blah. Which is to say they steal a bunch of older styles mash ‘em together and come up with Unknown Colors, except, as I’ve just been saying, these colours are known. They are catchy pop couched in distorted guitar and thick bass, Dinosaur Jr., The Posies, bands that the Labrador label’s bands love, dream pop, C86. They juggle all those balls, and then let them drop. Because, look there, they make pretty patterns and colours when they are all bouncing together in a group like that. This 5 piece are from Sweden. Sweden. Sweden. Sweden. I mean, where else? Sweden.
Anna Ekland manages to sing with both dusky seductiveness and childish happiness. I’m not quite sure how that’s possible, and to be honest it makes me feel a little uncomfortable when I think about it too hard. But anyway, her and the rest of the band (guitarists Martin Källholm and Marcus Sandgren, bassist Alex Svenson-Metes and drummer Micael Back) imbue this bag of swag with their own distinct mark. There’s an roominess to the way Ekland’s vocals are recorded, there’s a white-hot searing when a guitar is let loose for a solo (check out ‘Marble Gods’), and a giddiness to the way the bass is played (‘Little Light’ sounds like some baggy-era thing, Mock Turtles like). So, there’s a bunch of stolen styles, an edge of their own identity too, and the last thing to note is the high quality of the songs. Sweden.
‘Little Light’ is a good example as any of the coherent melodies to be found here. After a brief bit of twinkly guitar it kicks off with a tasty drum fill and the bass and guitars come in with a happy-time kick to the groin. There’s a swing and surprising languor in the melody and Ekland’s vocal, but always propelled by an awesomely simple riff and bouncy bassline. Touches like chimes and keyboard around the edges only serve to make that grin plastered to your face ache all the harder. This form of song can be slightly rockier (‘Marble Gods’), or slightly poppier (‘Shiny Teeth And Sharpened Claws’), but always at the same level of quality. Sweden.
And Odin it’s not the only type of song on the album, because as good and great as those songs are, if you wang ‘em in next to similar ones then it can drag an album down. ‘Blue Skies’, ‘Mother’s Tears’ and ‘My Twin Star’ are atmospheric and melancholy, ‘Lay Your Burden On Me’, ‘All The Songs’ and ‘When The Morning Comes’ are slower sentimental songs. These six serve to keep your interest, offering up pleasing variations and detours, while there’s always ‘Last Night’ and ‘Romans’ to shivvy it along. Then one final change with ‘Withering Petals And Dust’, which is what I imagine The Cowboy Junkies sound like, though I might be way off there. Sweden.
It’s a fun album, I mean what do you want from me here? I’ve explained how it sounds. Weak points? Hmmm… if you’re not actively listening to it, it can be easy to think there are some duds in there, the slower songs might feel like they are in the way if you’re just looking for some power pop. But that’s not the album’s fault, that’s yours you arsehole. Sweden.
75%
********
Text:
Album review: Sad Day For Puppets - 'Unknown Colours'
Fuzzy-sweet Swedish grunge-pop
May 27, 2009
“Any time is a good time for guitars and feedback,” claims guitarist Martin Källholm. Well, quite. The plaid days of early ’90s alt. rock are having a quiet resurgence, and the Stockholm quintet are one of its more beguiling advocates. The reference points – Dinosaur Jr and Mazzy Star in particular – may be familiar, but the band have a keen ear for simple melodies (Källholm reckons they can be traced back to Swedish lullabies). The Britpoppy ‘Little Light’ or the elegiac ‘All The Songs’ are easy to fall in love with. Anna Eklund’s spectral diction – enshrined under glacial washes of distortion – is seductive and richly evocative. If the prospect of a Swedish Joy Zipper appeals to you, you should investigate forthwith.
Barry Nicolson
8 out of 10
*******
Source: www.flashlightmusic.co.uk/albumreview/article/sad-day-for-puppets-unknown-colors-album-review.html
Text:
Sad Day For Puppets - Unknown Colors
May 28, 2009
Flashlight Rating - 4/5
We like this
Before anyone gets jingoistically (if it's not a word, it damn well should be) angry about the spelling of the title of Sad Day For Puppets' debut LP, I should make two things clear. Firstly, they're Swedish. Secondly, it is apparently "a comment on Sweden's deference to American culture". So there you go. Frankly, even if they were English, I would excuse them for the spelling on account of the fact that they've produced one of the best guitar pop albums I will hear this year.
Satire or not, there is a very strong Americana feel to much of Unknown Colours. The guitars are drenched in Pixies feedback; the pretty female vocals of opener 'Little Light' recalling Belly at their most melodic. In Anna Ekland, Sad Day For Puppets boast a female vocalist replete with pretty indie voice with hint of menace par excellence. Songwriter Martin Kallholm has given her a set of songs with which to showcase the adaptability of her voice. 'Mother's Tears', with its shuffling rhythms and distorted bassline sounds like prime Jesus and Mary Chain (I'd say The Raveonettes, but I wouldn't want to be accused of cross-Scandinavian generalisation. It would be true, but I won't), 'Marble Gods' recalls Lush, and the unrelentingly uplifting 'Last Night' could have come directly from The Boo Radley's majestic Giant Steps.
It's to Ekland's great credit that at all times her voice elevates the band above accusations of being mere copyists. Nowehere does Ekland sound better than on the single 'Cherry Blossom'. In a bizarre journalistic quirk, consecutive albums that I have reviewed have featured tracks that borrow wholesale from The Beach Boys' 'Fun, Fun, Fun'. 'Cherry Blossom' is as about as far removed from Green Day's joyless dirge as it as possible to get mind, for it is a glam tinged indie classic in the making. When Ekland effortlessly crooned "We could close our eyes, and always keep them closed", I decided I was in love.
Elsewhere, the band indulge influences closer to home. Though it is tempting to label Unknown Colors' more ethereal moments as Sigur Ros-esque, I prefer to believe Kallholm's take on tracks like 'Lay Your Burden On Me' as being more akin to the Swedish lullabies that the band grew up with. The album's finale, 'Withering Petals and Dust', sounds like you've known it forever; its mixture of folk tinged guitar, the childlike innocence of the melody and lush production sounding instantly familiar yet genuinely unique. It's a fitting end to a brilliant album, which takes masses of American and English sounds that you've heard before, but mixes them with influences closer to the band's hearts into something at times really rather special. Maybe one day we'll all be spelling 'Colours' in Swedish. Though as our website seems to die when even trying to put Sad Day For Puppets' songwriter's name in correctly, we kind of hope not.
Oliver W J Rock
********
Source: www.billboard.com/album/sad-day-for-puppets/unknown-colors/1261874/review#/album/sad-day-for-puppets/unknown-colors/1261874/review
Text:
Like many Swedish bands, Sad Day for Puppets display a remarkable ingenuity at making already sweet sounds even more confectionary. Unknown Colors, their debut album, revisits the halcyon days of the late '80s and early '90s, when indie pop crossbred with shoegaze and groups like Lush, Bettie Serveert, and Velocity Girl mixed those dreamy sonics with immediate hooks and melodies. Sad Day for Puppets don't make many advancements on that sound, except perhaps making it more delicate -- it's no surprise that their breezy songs have intangible or ephemeral imagery like skies, stars, and tears in their titles. Martin Kallholm and Marcus Sandgren's guitars chime, fuzz, and occasionally tear it up like Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, while Anna Eklund's lighter-than-air voice gives songs like "Little Light" and "Blue Skies" extra wistfulness. While Sad Day for Puppets aren't doing anything particularly new, they don't really need to when they write songs as irresistible as "Marble Gods," which shows off those guitars and that voice at their most charming. "Romans" sparkles like it was dipped in sugar, but Unknown Colors offers a few different flavors of sweetness and light: the slinky fuzz bass and tambourine on "Mother's Tears" give it a surprisingly sexy vibe, and "Cherry Blossom"'s guitars have more of a rock strut to them than might be expected. As the album unfolds, it shows that Sad Day for Puppets also have a lot in common with contemporaries like the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and especially with fellow countrymen and women such as Sambassadeur and the Concretes, particularly on the swooning "Withering Petals and Dust." At times, it feels like the bandmembers let their well-worn sound do more of the work in their music than the actual songwriting, but the breakup lyrics of "When the Morning Comes" ("No matter what I say/It's just flowers on the grave") show there is some depth beneath the band's pretty surfaces. Even if there aren't too many previously unknown sounds on Unknown Colors, Sad Day for Puppets know how to use them well.
Heather Phares, All Music Guide
********
Source: www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/sad-day-for-puppets-unknown-colors/
Text:
Sad Day For Puppets – Unknown Colors
by Simon Gurney on 12 Jun, 2009
Bands stealing older bands styles doesn’t matter when the stealing is done so well. Poseurs copy, the real deal steals. Sad Day For Puppets blah blah blah. Blah. Which is to say they steal a bunch of older styles mash ‘em together and come up with Unknown Colors, except, as I’ve just been saying, these colours are known. They are catchy pop couched in distorted guitar and thick bass, Dinosaur Jr., The Posies, bands that the Labrador label’s bands love, dream pop, C86. They juggle all those balls, and then let them drop. Because, look there, they make pretty patterns and colours when they are all bouncing together in a group like that. This 5 piece are from Sweden. Sweden. Sweden. Sweden. I mean, where else? Sweden.
Anna Ekland manages to sing with both dusky seductiveness and childish happiness. I’m not quite sure how that’s possible, and to be honest it makes me feel a little uncomfortable when I think about it too hard. But anyway, her and the rest of the band (guitarists Martin Källholm and Marcus Sandgren, bassist Alex Svenson-Metes and drummer Micael Back) imbue this bag of swag with their own distinct mark. There’s an roominess to the way Ekland’s vocals are recorded, there’s a white-hot searing when a guitar is let loose for a solo (check out ‘Marble Gods’), and a giddiness to the way the bass is played (‘Little Light’ sounds like some baggy-era thing, Mock Turtles like). So, there’s a bunch of stolen styles, an edge of their own identity too, and the last thing to note is the high quality of the songs. Sweden.
‘Little Light’ is a good example as any of the coherent melodies to be found here. After a brief bit of twinkly guitar it kicks off with a tasty drum fill and the bass and guitars come in with a happy-time kick to the groin. There’s a swing and surprising languor in the melody and Ekland’s vocal, but always propelled by an awesomely simple riff and bouncy bassline. Touches like chimes and keyboard around the edges only serve to make that grin plastered to your face ache all the harder. This form of song can be slightly rockier (‘Marble Gods’), or slightly poppier (‘Shiny Teeth And Sharpened Claws’), but always at the same level of quality. Sweden.
And Odin it’s not the only type of song on the album, because as good and great as those songs are, if you wang ‘em in next to similar ones then it can drag an album down. ‘Blue Skies’, ‘Mother’s Tears’ and ‘My Twin Star’ are atmospheric and melancholy, ‘Lay Your Burden On Me’, ‘All The Songs’ and ‘When The Morning Comes’ are slower sentimental songs. These six serve to keep your interest, offering up pleasing variations and detours, while there’s always ‘Last Night’ and ‘Romans’ to shivvy it along. Then one final change with ‘Withering Petals And Dust’, which is what I imagine The Cowboy Junkies sound like, though I might be way off there. Sweden.
It’s a fun album, I mean what do you want from me here? I’ve explained how it sounds. Weak points? Hmmm… if you’re not actively listening to it, it can be easy to think there are some duds in there, the slower songs might feel like they are in the way if you’re just looking for some power pop. But that’s not the album’s fault, that’s yours you arsehole. Sweden.
75%
********